Quips and Quiddities Part 29

CHARLES GREVILLE, _Diary_.

You women regard men just as you buy books--you never care about what is in them, but how they are bound and lettered.

_Damas_, in LORD LYTTON's _Lady of Lyons_.

_EPITAPH ON LORD L----._

Here lies L.'s body, from his soul asunder: He once was on the turf, and now is _under_.

SCROPE DAVIES, _apud_ MOORE.

_A SUITABLE BRIDE._

My friend Admiral E. E., shortly after his return from a cruise, met an old acquaintance in the streets of ----, who said, after the usual salutations had pa.s.sed, "They telt me, Admiral, that ye had got married." The Admiral, hoping for a compliment, replied, "Why, Bailie, I am getting on; I'm not so young as I was, you see, and none of the girls will have me."

On which the Bailie, with perfect good faith and simplicity, replied, "'Deed, Admiral, I was na evenin' yer to a la.s.sie, but there's mony a fine, respeckit, _half-worn_ wumman wad be glad to tak ye."

FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.

_ON THE WORKS OF THE LAKE POETS._

They come from the Lakes--an appropriate quarter For poems diluted with plenty of water.

REV. HENRY TOWNSHEND.

And I whispered, "I guess The sweet secret thou keepest, And the dainty distress That thou wistfully weepest; And the question is, 'Licence or banns?' though undoubtedly banns are the cheapest."

Then her white hand I clasped, And with kisses I crowned it.

But she glared and she gasped, And she muttered, "Confound it!"

Or at least it was something like that, but the noise of the omnibus drowned it.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Phantasmagoria_.

It was Lady Cork who had originated the idea that, after all, heaven would perhaps turn out very dull to her _when she got there; sitting on damp clouds_, and _singing "G.o.d save the King,"_ being her idea of the princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nts there.

f.a.n.n.y KEMBLE, _Record of a Girlhood_.

_ON FEMININE TALKATIVENESS._

How wisely Nature, ordering all below, Forbade a beard on woman's chin to grow!

For how could she be shaved, whate'er the skill, Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?

ANON.

When Tennyson entered the Oxford Theatre to receive his honorary degree of D.C.L., his locks hanging in admired disorder on his shoulders, dishevelled and unkempt, a voice from the gallery was heard crying out to him, "Did your mother call you early, dear?"

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.

"Ha! ha!" he said, "you loathe your ways, You writhe at these my words of warning, In agony your hands you raise!"

(And so they did, for they were yawning.)

"Ho! ho!" he cries, "you bow your crests-- My eloquence has set you weeping; In shame you bend upon your b.r.e.a.s.t.s!"

(And so they did, for they were sleeping.)

W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.

You may safely flatter any woman, from her understanding down to the exquisite taste of her fan.

LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.

_ON LADIES' ACCOMPLISHMENTS._

Your dressing, dancing, gadding, where's the good in?

Sweet lady, tell me--can you make a pudding?

_Epigrams in Distich._

Lord Braxfield, at whist, exclaimed to a lady with whom he was playing, "What are ye doing, ye d.a.m.ned auld ----?" and then, recollecting himself, "Your pardon's begged, madam; I took ye for my ain wife."

LORD MACAULAY, _Life_.

Then life was thornless to our ken, And, Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then A rise without a bramble.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

John Hamilton Reynolds was specially distinguished for the aptness of his quotations.

Finding him one day lunching at the Garrick, I asked him if the beef he was eating was good. "It would have been," he answered, "if d.a.m.ned custom had not _brazed_ it so."

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

While spending an evening at [Mendelssohn's]

house, a note, with a ticket enclosed, was put in my hands. The note ran thus: "The Directors of the Leipzig Concerts beg leave to present to Mr.

_Shurely_ a ticket of the concert of to-morrow." Whereupon Mendelssohn ran to the pianoforte, and immediately began to play the subject from the chorus of the "Messiah,"

"_Surely_ he hath borne," etc.